Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry have helped to drive a trend for baking. Photograph: David Fisher/REX

Boosted by TV programmes like The Great British Bake off, more people are discovering the pleasures of home baking, with growing numbers looking to turn their leisure-time hobbies into flourishing home-based businesses.

Sales of baking products have been rising steadily, up by 62% since 2007, according to market research and shopper insight firm IRI. They say this trend is driven partly by families being keen to get back into the kitchen and cook for themselves, but also by celebrity bakers like Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry who front the nation’s favourite TV bakery competition.

But how easy is it to turn a spare-time passion into a profitable enterprise? With competition from new bakery companies increasing all the time, cottage bakery businesses are finding it difficult to compete on price. However, they can compete on quality – as Ann Bailey discovered when she launched her small home bakery business, Mrs Blueberry, in May this year.

Compete on quality, not price

She became a cake entrepreneur almost by chance. Having just moved to Hever in Kent, she decided to escape the unpacking with a visit to a local farmers’ market, where she became captivated by the idea of having her own stall selling traditional breads, biscuits and cakes, some of the things she loved to bake by hand.

One of the biggest challenges, she says, is making a home bakery business pay financially without compromising on the ingredients used. “With Mrs Blueberry, I don’t compromise, and I make a profit with prices that reflect the quality of the handmade bake. That, plus the fact that I do not have wastage, as everything I bake gets sold, also helps,” she explains.

Until now, she has relied on word-of-mouth recommendations for her handmade bakes to grow sales, but plans to venture into online marketing later this year.

Learn the baking trade

Debbie White, founder of White’s Cake House, had made cakes as a hobby for years before deciding to turn it into a business that she could run from her home in Tavistock in Devon.

Before officially launching her business in January, White took a college course and gained a formal qualification in cake decorating. She produces a wide range of cakes for all occasions, including birthdays, weddings and christenings, in bespoke designs.

She says: “I found it very hard when I first started the business. Cake-making is very much a local industry, and there are two or three strong competitors in my local area, so you have to be prepared to work hard to gain your share of that market.”

Build your brand online

With something as visual as occasion cakes, a good business website to showcase the most stunning examples is a must. White also has an active Facebook page and uses Facebook and local newspaper advertising to drum up business. It all takes time, says White, and that’s before you factor in the actual production. She explains: “You can’t underestimate how much time goes into the actual cake making. The fine detail of the decoration is very labour intensive and you can’t rush it, so my goal is to produce two to three cakes, certainly no more than four, every week.”

Running a business from home has its advantages; convenience and minimal overheads, but as White points out, the costs can mount up. She says: “You need to factor in the costs of using extra fuel, buying special baking and decorating equipment to make cakes to your client’s exact specification – I was once asked to make a wedding cake in the shape of a particular lighthouse – and even the extra washing up liquid you use. For me, the cake decorating course required a significant investment, but the skills I gained during the training have made it financially worthwhile.”

Tap into TV trends

Ambitious home baking business owners can use the current craze for TV food programmes to expand their small bakery businesses into a much larger operation, as Allison Whitmarsh, founder of cake firm ProperMaid has done.

A former dinner lady, Whitmarsh launched the business from her home in 2008 after deciding at the age of 40 to study hospitality management at university. In December 20102 she took Proper Maid into BBC TV’s Dragon’s Den where she secured £50,000 funding from Dragon Deborah Meaden in return for a 25% share of her business.

But it was the arrival of The Great British Bake Off on TV that helped propel Proper Maid to the next level. She says: “Before the show started, I struggled to get listed with major distributors, as they all felt my product would not sell to the masses as it was too quirky and the price point was always an issue, due to it being more expensive.”

Find your USP

“However, since the programme has started they are now more inclined to go with our products just because of the ‘point of difference’ with our range and customers are now looking for something different,” says Whitmarsh.

Proper Maid has enjoyed growth of 43% in its last financial year, and is targeting 50% growth for the next year.

Whitmarsh, who now employs around 25 local people says: “We have just extended our current manufacturing site to accommodate this growth and have also invested in a distribution unit to enable us the service contracts on a national level rather than as previous just regional.”

So is this an idyllic business for someone who loves to bake? Ann Bailey believes it is. “I enjoy creating, and that’s what baking is about,” she says. “Testing and perfecting new recipes is both exciting and rewarding, and being my own boss brings a freedom I enjoy. For me, the reward comes in other ways too; the knowledge that the old techniques that my great grandmother taught me are not dying out, as they came close to doing, while passing on my enthusiasm for good, fresh simple food is payment too.

“There’s lots of hard work and too many hours spent washing up and other chores that go hand in hand with a home bakery business, but for me the positives far outweigh the negatives.”